Listening- sedighe Eyvazi
Listening ' '''Introduction ' Listening to a second language (L2) has been regarded as the most widely used language skill in normal daily life (Morley 2001; Rost 2001). It involves a complex process that allows us to understand and interpret spoken messages in real time by making use of a variety of sources such as phonetic, phonological, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic (Lynch 1998). Given the complexity that underlies this process of listening comprehension, it has been considered the most difficult skill to learn out of the four skills. '''Listening within an environmentalist approach ' ' ' ' Up to the end of the 1960s, the status of listening comprehension in language learning and teaching was one of neglect and, like the reading skill (see Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor’s chapter on reading in this volume), listening was viewed as a passive process with no role in language learning. These environmentalist considerations about learning to listen resulted in the Audiolingual teaching methodology. This instructional approach emphasized the practice of listening by engaging learners in a series of exercises that focused on pronunciation drills, memorization of prefabricated patterns and imitation of dialogues (Morley 1999, 2001). The emphasis was, therefore, placed on the purely linguistic level, in which learners were taught to listen to single words and short phrases spoken in isolation. Listening within an innatist approach By the late 1960s, the status of listening changed from being considered just a merely mechanical process of habit formation to a more dynamic and mentalistic process. The main influence of such a shift came from Chomsky’s (1957, 1965) innatist views, which stated that children possess an innate ability that allows them to face the complex task of language learning (see Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor this volume). Within such a view (and together with the discipline of psycholinguistics which attempted to test Chomsky’s innatist theory) special emphasis was given to the mental and cognitive processes involved in the comprehension act. The mentalistic aspects underlying this innatist view to learning to listen were adopted by a series of educators who developed teaching methodologies based on what Rost (2002) has called initial listening ''or ''listening first (i.e., listening should be the first aspect to be tackled in the language classroom). These instructional approaches highlighted the explicit role of listening as a critical element for language learning and claimed that reception should precede production (Peterson 2001). The main proponent of such methodologies was Asher (1969), who proposed the pedagogical system Total Physical Response. As can be derived from this innatist view, by the late 1960s and early 1970s listening was seen as the promoter of language learning. However, relevant aspects such as the interactive nature of listening, the role that contextual factors play while listening, as well as the fact that we listen for meaning and have a purpose when listening, were not taken into account. The consideration of how these factors affect listening comprehension was to gradually become more important in the following years. Listening within an interactionist approach ' ' By the late 1970s, the role of listening assumed greater importance due to significant shifts in a variety of research fields that shaped the interactionist approach to language learning. A more dynamic and interactive process of meaning creation during the listening event was now emphasized under two main views of comprehension (Peterson 2001). On the one hand, the information processing ''view of listening claimed that comprehension of a given message only occurred when it was internally reproduced in the listeners’ mind. On the other hand, the ''constructivist ''view of listening emphasized the fact that listeners did not merely receive and process meaning, but rather constructed such meaning according to their own purposes for listening as well as their own prior knowledge. In the Task-Based approach, learners are engaged in a ''listening and using ''model in which they are first asked to listen to authentic language samples and then to carry out a particular task using the information received (i.e., follow the directions given, complete a diagram, fill in a table, take notes, and so on). In the Interactive approach to listening, learners follow a ''decoding, critical-thinking, speaking ''model in which they have to first decode the information they hear, react to it by processing it critically, and finally produce an appropriate response. Given all these aspects, listening can be viewed as a communicative event in which listeners need to be taught a variety of communicative competencies that would allow them to behave appropriately in a given situation. The importance of integrating listening within a communicative competence framework is, therefore, the focus of the next section. '''Improving listening skills' Listening skills are essential for learning since they enable students to acquire insights and information, and to achieve success in communicating with others. Life within and outside school affords many listening opportunities, but some students fail to seize them because they let their minds wander or they may concentrate on what they want to say themselves rather than on what a speaker is saying. Teachers can show students why good listening is useful and even crucial in some situations. Poor listening can lead to unnecessary arguments and problems. As in the case of doctors, careful listening and questioning might even save lives. Students’ listening skills may be enhanced and tested by asking them questions about what they have heard. They may be given practice in note-taking and could be asked questions about the facts and inferences that may be made from their notes. They can be taught to recognize the difference between the main points and incidental or lessrelevant ideas and information. Students’ listening skills may be enhanced and tested by asking them questions about what they have heard. They may be given practice in note-taking and could be asked questions about the facts and inferences that may be made from their notes. They can be taught to recognize the difference between the main points and incidental or lessrelevant ideas and information. Learners can also benefit from practice in recognizing the purpose of presentations and other information they hear. It can be useful if they are taught to set goals for what they want to learn from a presentation and to monitor how well they accomplish their goals. Students can be taught to listen selectively for specific kinds of information, such as the main purpose, the themes, the details and any implications. They can even be tested for their ability to identify the essential information in the presence of irrelevant material and distractions, as is the case in much of adult life.(Wallace, ?) It has been claimed that over 50 percent of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening (Nunan,1998). Despite this, we often take the importance of listening for granted, and it is arguably the least understood and most overlooked of the four skills (L, S, R and W) in the language classroom. Models of Listening Listening was traditionally seen as a passive process by which the listener receives information sent by a speaker. More recent models view listening as a much more active and interpretive process in which the message is not fixed but is created in the interactional space between participants. Meanings are shaped by context and constructed by the listener through the act of interpreting ''meaning rather than receiving it intact (Lynch and Mendelsohn, 2002: 194). French and English immersion programmes in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s (Swain, 1985). She found that English students in French immersion classes were performing as well as French students in subject matter, but their writing and speaking was seriously flawed grammatically despite many hours listening to subjects taught in French. On the other hand, when we have to say or write something we need to compose the sentence in our head and this involves more attention to grammar; to the syntactic layer of language. So although meaning-focused listening is important, learners also need opportunities to pay attention to language details so they can learn those parts of the language system that may not be so important for basic communication but are important for accuracy. '''Activities for Meaning-focused Listening' In children’s classes, the prototypical teacher-fronted listening technique for meaning-focused input is listening to stories. The teacher chooses a graded reader that is at the right level for the learners; that is, there are only a few unknown words in the story. The teacher sits next to the whiteboard and slowly reads the story to the learners. Initially, most sentences are read twice and are read slowly. All the time the teacher is watching to see that the learners understand what they hear. When words come up that the learners might not recognise or which might be unknown to the learners, the teacher quickly writes them on the board and gives a quick explanation, using either a translation, a gesture, pointing, a quick drawing, or a simple second language definition. If the same word or another member of its word family occurs again, the teacher points to it on the board. As the learners become familiar with the story the teacher reads a little faster and cuts down the repetitions and explanations. The main goal of the activity is for the learners to follow and enjoy the story. After about ten minutes, the teacher stops at a suitable point, such as the end of a chapter, and the activity ends, to be continued in the next day or so. Listening to the story becomes an eagerly anticipated activity, similar to following a serialized programme on TV. This technique has the following features. 1. The learners are interested in what they are listening to. 2. They are able to understand what they are listening to. 3. The material is at the right level for the learners. 4. There are a few unfamiliar or partly unfamiliar items that they can understand through the help of context, or through the teacher’s explanation. Some of these items occur several times in the input. 5. There is a little bit of deliberate attention given to language features without too much interruption to the flow of the story. 6. There are possibilities for interaction during the listening as the teacher occasionally asks questions or gets the learners to anticipate what will happen, and as the learners ask the teacher to repeat, slow down, or explain. 7. There is a large quantity of input. 8. Learners do not have to produce much output. Supporting Listening We can assist our learners by providing them with support when they do an activity (e.g., around the house—add a list of words or pictures for the learners to see as they listen). This support acts as a temporary bridge which learners use to reach the target. Over time, learners internalise the expertise required to meet the target independently and the bridge can be removed. We can provide this support in four main ways: 1. By providing prior experience with aspects of the text (i.e., with language, ideas, skills or text-type). 2. By guiding the learners through the text. 3. By setting up cooperative learning arrangements (for example, shared reading approaches). 4. By providing the means by which learners can achieve comprehension by themselves. Providing Prior Experience This can be done by rehearsing the text beforehand, using a simple version first, repeating the listening, using language or ideas already within learners’ experience while increasing the skill demands of a task, and preteaching items. The topic of the text can come from the learners’ previous experience and may be based on a first language text. Similarly, working on a theme that continues over several days can provide useful content support for listening activities, because the learners’ content knowledge increases as they keep working on the theme. Providing Guidance During Listening '' '' '' '' Learners can be guided through the text by using completion activities where part of the text is provided but the learners must fill in the gaps, by using ordering activities where the main points are provided and the learners must put them in the correct order, having questions to answer that cover the main points of the input, and having information transfer diagrams to fill in or pictures to label. '' '' '' '' Working in Groups to Support Listening '' '' '' '' Learners can treat listening as a kind of group work where they are able to negotiate with the person providing the input. This can allow for negotiation to occur during the activity. In note-taking activities learners can work in pairs to take notes, and if the lecturer provides time for learners to discuss the input with each other at points during the lecture this can help those who are getting left behind keep up with what’s going on. Strategies There is some debate (Ridgway, 2000a and b; Field, 2000) about whether strategy training is useful for listening, although Rubin (1994) claims that listening strategies can be taught and do improve comprehension. To a large degree this debate is about the definition of “strategy”, but it does have direct teaching implications. If the here-and-now nature of listening makes strategy use unrealistic then there is little point in training learners in strategies that cannot be applied. Goh (2000) proposes that the first step in strategy training involves finding out the particular problems that learners face in listening comprehension. Here is a list of the problems identified by the learners in her study, who were college level EFL learners in Hong Kong. Learners may have problems with recognising word forms and keeping up with what is coming in. They may also not have enough time to turn perceived form into an appropriate message. While they struggle over one part they may miss what follows. Goh suggests that problems can occur at the levels of perception, parsing and utilization. Learners can ''benefit from training in listening strategies. Two types of useful strategies are: 1. ''Communication strategies—strategies to assist comprehension, for example making predictions before listening, listening selectively, knowing how to interrupt politely, etc. 2. Learning strategies—strategies for noticing language forms in the input in their independent listening, for example negotiating (seeking clarification), listening for patterns, focused listening.